1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a fuel injection assembly for delivering a fuel and air mixture into an intake manifold of an internal combustion engine and to a method of delivering a fuel and air mixture into an intake manifold of an internal combustion engine.
2. Related Art
Despite the ubiquitous use of fuel injection, carburetors remain in use in many internal combustion engines. Generally, carburetors include at least one Venturi-shaped barrel, throttle valve and float bowl. In operation, a vacuum is drawn by a piston, which pulls air through the Venturi-shaped barrel and an intake manifold and ultimately to a combustion chamber. A low pressure region in the Venturi-shaped barrel pulls fuel out of the float bowl to atomize the fuel into the flow of air. In contrast, in most fuel injected engines, a fuel injector propels fuel either into the air just upstream of each cylinders' intake valve or directly into the combustion chamber. As one of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate, it is very costly to convert a carbureted engine to fuel injection using conventional processes because certain components of the engine must be modified or replaced in order to accommodate the fuel injectors.
Some engine manufacturers have developed hybrid carburetor fuel injector assemblies that can be used with carbureted engines. Such hybrid assemblies typically include one or more fuel injectors which are configured to propel fuel directly into a flow of air flowing through a Venturi-shaped barrel. However, such hybrid assemblies are often very costly to manufacture and may not provide sufficient atomization of the fuel into the flow of air.